Page 116 of Saving Graces
For the eight-hundreth time Savannah thought about how grateful she was that her sister had a Kinsey in her life.
“I’d rather have all the fun and get to keep my quiet life,” Kinsey continued. Savannah followed her gaze to where Rosalie stood beside the bar talking with Coral. Rosalie glanced up as she felt their shared gaze and smiled. She was grateful her best friend had a Kinsey in her life too.
She watched as her sister suddenly decided she’d had enough and smilingly refuse all further schmoozing, slipping into Lane’s patient arms with grateful eyes and a heated kiss, escaping to dance with her friends. Cassidy, it seemed, had some good solid boundaries. She would be okay. Between them all, they’d make sure of it.
“What happened?” Savannah asked her sister when she finally had her ear. “I thought you’d rather die than admit we were related.”
“It couldn’t stay a secret forever,” Cassidy said simply. “I’d rather get out in front of it, than let someone else make it into a thing. Besides,” she shrugged, “I stopped caring at some point. I know we’re a great band. I know now that I can’t control shit. And I know I got a leg up because of you. If there are consequences, then they’re owed.”
“I’m so proud of you.” Savannah bit her lip. “For what you said on stage tonight. To start out this way, to take the risk-”
“It’s not a risk,” Cassidy said flatly. “If our audience isn’t safe for Lane or for Coral or for any of us, I don’t want to be part of it. And all of them-” she waved her hand vaguely at the country music establishment figures in the room and beyond, “-if they want to make money off us they can get on fucking board.”
“I wish I’d been as brave as you.” Tears filled Savannah’s eyes again and Cassidy squeezed her arm.
“You were just trying to survive,” she said. “You had to play the game so you could get to a safe place to come out. It’s how you got to be a goddamn queer icon,” she smiled. “You changed the game, and now the rules are different. You stood up when you could and now, we can stand up from the beginning.”
“You’re a bad-ass,” Coral said, overhearing the tail end of the conversation and wrapped an arm around Cassidy’s waist. “Some of us don’t get the choice about whether to be out or not. Everyone working to make their own little corner of the world a safe place is how we’re going to win this shit: staying and fighting for the whole family.”
Savannah nodded hard and fast. She watched Cassidy smile up at Coral like she was the whole damn world. She looked around at their gathered friends and family all around the room. She caught Brynn’s eye from where she stood talking to Noah, soda water in hand, and as always a small bloom of heat hit her chest as the beautiful woman she’d married smiled at her from across a crowded room. It had been nearly five years since the first time she’d laid eyes on her on a cold afternoon on the bluff above the lake and it still seemed almost absurdly wonderful that somehow, throughout all of it, it was Brynn Marshall to whom she got to belong.
She saw Lane cross the room looking so handsome that one of the young reporters literally winced with desire and despair as they paused to check in with Cassidy, tucking her hair back and kissing her before heading over to the bar to get them drinks. Just before the bar they paused and looked around. Savannah saw their gaze seek out Rosalie and Kinsey before they rolled their eyes and decided not to wait. Rosalie was pressed up against a speaker stack, her fingers toying with Kinsey’s belt loop and her green eyes filled with heat and love as the younger woman leaned down toward her, saying something in a low tone that made her teeth sink into her lower lip against her smile, before her eyelashes flicked up and she kissed her.
Savannah struggled to look away for a moment. She’d never once seen Rosalie like this and it made her heart both expand and contract to see her look so free and so held all at once, glowing from within. She wondered if this was how Rosalie had felt, when Savannah had met Brynn, like something desperately precious was being won and lost all at once. She looked up to see that Cassidy was watching them too.
“I love Rosalie for her,” she said quietly when she felt Savannah’s gaze, “but sometimes I’m so mad I don’t get her all to myself anymore.”
Savannah nodded.
“Totally,” she agreed.
“Is that weird, do you think?” Cassidy worried.
“No,” Savannah told her. She watched as Rosalie teasingly pushed Kinsey away from her, then looked up to see Savannah’s eyes on her face. Rosalie smiled and made her way over toward them as Kinsey joined Lane at the bar.
“What are you three talking about?” Rosalie asked as she drew near, a warm glow in her eyes.
“I was just telling Cassidy,” Savannah said, reaching out to slip her hand into Coral’s, her eyes meeting Rosalie’s, “that sometimes, no matter who else we love, it’s really our friends who are the great loves of our lives.”
“Sap,” said Coral, squeezing her fingers. Rosalie’s green eyes held hers and about eight thousand moments they’d reflected flashed through Savannah’s mind. Rosalie’s smile was everything.
“God,” she said. “That’s so gay.”
Epilogue
Bethany stood a few feet away from the door to the bar and lit a cigarette. She had quit, mostly, but sometimes when she was nervous she couldn’t help but reach for one. And this - walking into an exclusive Nashville party that contained both of her beautiful, famous, estranged daughters - was about as nervous as you could get.
“Can I have one of those?”
Bethany looked up. A woman had arrived next to her. She was glamorous, tall, and her voice had a sexy lilt to it that made Bethany feel small and plain.
“Oh, sure.” Bethany offered her the pack and the woman shook one out. Placing it between her expertly painted lips she clicked the lighter, flame flickering in the dim light of the street.
“This is it, right?” the woman asked. “The after party for Cassidy Carver?”
“It is,” Bethany said. The sound of her youngest daughter’s name coming out the mouth of a stranger like she was public property was achingly familiar to her after the path her eldest child had taken, and so was the mixture of pride and nerves.
“Savannah Grace’s little sister,” the woman breathed, sounding almost equally as shocked as Bethany felt.
